The Notebook
Overall Rating: 4/5
Spoilers: Some
TL;DR: Could be difficult for readers unaccustomed to older English or just older ways of speaking, though the less fancy speech can be just as jarring. Kinda wish it would have been in poetry format, honestly.
***
I make no secret of my distaste for pulp fiction, which I often consider to be just ridiculous people doing ridiculous things and often over-aggrandizing other straightforward and even mundane quests. I have no real taste for it, although I am not ignorant that its main purpose, in the modern world, is to simply inspire through action and let one's imagination run wild in a setting where anything is possible and there are no limits if one cares to go looking.
However, if one really wants to go in-depth on pulp fiction, I think he will find that it has its roots in the old epics and sagas, stories like Beowulf and Mulan, from a time when chiefs and warriors and marauders boasted of their deeds and the deeds of their forebears, often weaving in supernatural elements, either because they believe they were facing demons or what-have-you, or because they want their audience to believe so.
The difference between the two, I believe, is that epics are typically rooted in some grain of truth or else they are treated as such, where people who actually lived went to places that actually existed or that the people of the culture believe existed (fairy realms, hells, etc). Epics are also used for teaching, history, culture, morals, religion, or some combination of the four. Pulp fiction, in my experience, is more gratuitous. The hero never actually existed, and he goes to places that do not and never existed. Even if there is some lesson to be learned, it provides no more connection than any other well-written fiction with an underlying moral teaching.
"Tears of Winter" certainly falls into the category of being more of an epic. It opens up with a grand poem and a "Hark!" to hear the tale. Although entirely fictional (or maybe not), we learn the story of the narrator's great-great-grandfather and his epic adventures. Knowing that this is a related epic saga makes it enjoyable because the details don't matter as much. The Petty Poet Sieg is being boasted of, and because we know he obviously survives, it takes the strain out of trying to care about whether he lives or dies and frees the reader to care about the moment.
Being written in older English with older grammar really helps to sell the tale as you imagine them sitting around a campfire or whatever they're doing, but the less refined English of Duane is a bit jolting and really pulled me out a few times. Even if the narrator is trying to make a point of him being a less-than (or he holds an opinion of such), the cadence of an epic kind of demands that he be a little more refined. Either Duane never picked up on anything as his time as a house thrall, which makes him stupid and not as fearful as one would expect, or else he needs to be made out to be one of the many things to be feared beyond the wall which means being just as refined or perhaps even more, on the level with Zmeu and Titania.
And, speaking of the cadence of an epic, if I could wish for anything, I would wish for this to be in poem or some form of song, reserving prose for those little bits where the narrator goes off-track or speaks to Canti. Considering the culture basis for this epic, I would expect to hear it sung with mighty boasting, not simply chatted about.
Nothing about the plot itself really stuck out. Once again, because of its role as a related epic and fantastical boasting rather than an in-the-moment story, I was more willing to forgive some of the details that might otherwise annoy me and classify it as pulp fiction. Otherwise, straightforward and well-done.
***
Overall Rating: 4/5
Spoilers: Some
TL;DR: Could be difficult for readers unaccustomed to older English or just older ways of speaking, though the less fancy speech can be just as jarring. Kinda wish it would have been in poetry format, honestly.
